Prior to the invention of digital photography, people tended to share photos by displaying printed copies in frames and albums or would store them in a container in hope of preserving these assets preserved for future use or future generations. Important photos would often be inscribed on the back with significant details (people, location, and event) to preserve the memory of that particular occasion. Many people would share their memories by assembling an album that could be viewed with others. Occasionally, extra copies of special photos may have been printed for friends, relatives, etc. Film slide shows were also a popular medium for sharing photo memories.
With the evolution of digital files, there has been explosive growth in the number of individuals taking photos, making movies and gathering digital documents and in the sheer number of files people are capturing digitally. Today, virtually every personal computing device contains some kind of photo, movie or other type of digital file.
At the same time, there is little to no cost for people to store large amounts of photos in various “containers” of the modern age. Facebook, Flickr, Shutterfly and countless other social media and specialty digital files sites allow users to post and share images to a community with a frequency and ease that continues to feed the fire of the digital revolution.
What is needed to complement the widespread availability of digital files is a medium that allows people to organize, view, preserve and share these files with all the memory details captured, connected and vivified via an interactive interface. Such a solution would allow digital files, including documents, photos, videos and audio, to tell a full story now, and for generations to come.
The present disclosure relates to one or more of the following features, elements or combinations thereof. A web-based digital file storage system is disclosed. The storage system may include a digital file repository for storing and retrieving digital files, such as photos, a digital tagging system configured to assign digital tags to the digital files, a sorting system, and a user interface.
The digital tagging system may include various types of data, such as a person's name, a location, a recipe, a date, a family relationship to the user, an event name, a rating, sharing rights, file type and a document name. The sorting system can allow the digital files to be searched and sorted according to a plurality of types of data and can be used for creating and organizing special views. The user interface may be user-configurable, and can present the digital files on a user's screen based on these user inputs.
The digital file repository may be accessible over the Internet. The sorting system may provide a user with the ability to search based on a plurality of digital tags. The disclosed system may also provide a way to track relationships between users, so that a family tree can be displayed.
Recipes may also be linked to a person's name, with, for example, a video and digital copy of original hand-written recipe to create a recipe view.
Moreover, the digital files and data can be exported as a single file with the digital tagging embedded within the exported file.
In another embodiment, a method of storing digital photographs is disclosed. The method may include the steps of storing a digital photograph in a file repository, associating a plurality of digital tags having different tag types with the digital photograph, providing a search function that permits searching by a plurality of digital tag types and provides a search result, and providing a user-configurable output to display the search result. The digital tag types may include, for example, a person's name, a location, a recipe, a date, a relationship, an event name, a rating, file type and a document type. The method may include a further step of providing access to the file repository via the Internet. The method may also allow for tracking relationships between users so that a family tree can be displayed.
Additional features of the disclosure will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of preferred embodiments exemplifying the best mode of carrying out the invention as presently perceived.